Recruitment Consultants have one of the best jobs in the world

Last week my mentee, Emily Lewis, asked to do an interview with her for International Women’s Day and the main question she wanted to pose to people was “what advice we would give people who hadn’t considered a career in recruitment yet”.

Because I essentially rambled on in the video for 3 minutes, I thought I would put that advice a little more eloquently in a quick blog. Here’s my step by step guide to help you decide if recruitment is a career for you.

1.    It’s awesome. Google it. Talk to some people that have done the job. It's not vocational so doesn’t always come up in your career discussions with parents or teachers but have a look at it. It's fast paced, fun and gets you doing a multitude of different tasks. Remember, there's no specific qualification or background required to get into it. I did a law degree, others did engineering, labouring, professional sports, telemarketing, events planning - you name it - there is no prerequisite for qualifications.

2.    Once you’ve done the above, ask yourself whether you have some of these traits (they will definitely help)

• Resilience - Industry wide acknowledged to be amongst the top traits someone will need to make it in recruitment. You need a good bit of grit and determination to succeed.
• Good listening – Obtain information, understand it and process it. Clients and candidates need to be heard and understood.
• Organisation and focus - Recruitment involves managing lots of different people, vacancies and clients at the same time so you need to work a system or 2 to keep on top of it, properly. It's easy to be distracted so make sure you are someone that can stick to a task for 2-3 hours at a time.

3.    Got some of those traits? Think about how useful a career in sales is for your overall career.

If you think you might like to be involved in business throughout your lifetime, perhaps even own your own business, then getting a mastery in sales is one of the biggest assets you can have. Sales is generally the most important function for every business so if you’ve got it nailed, you will always be employable and your chances of success in a business career are much increased.

4.    Recruitment consultants have one of the best jobs in the world

Having a job is one of life’s absolutes (check out Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), right up there with food, water and shelter, in my opinion. The feeling of purpose, the sense of ownership, relationships you build and contributing something that makes the world tick round a little better, more efficiently, colourfully, safely than it did before. Everyone should have a job.

Recruitment Consultants have one of the best jobs in the world because we enable other people to get jobs and it can be super fun and challenging along the way.

NB. I just want to qualify that I make the above comment under the total realism that recruiters do not usually get into the industry purely in order to satisfy their sense of altruism and are generally paid well for their part in the supply chain. They are not all secretly tree hugging, hemp wearing, saviours of the universe but becoming a good one is one of the most rewarding things you can do. You can see the positive impact you have on other people.

Done well, it is a true professional service, it can create a genuine impact on society and be very fulfilling for you.

And you’ll be able to afford a nice house along the way, probably much sooner than most of your peers.